About the Author

Kathryn Harrison is the author of the memoirs The Kiss and The Mother Knot. She has also written the novels Envy, The Seal Wife, The Binding Chair, Poison, Exposure, and Thicker Than Water; a travel memoir, The Road to Santiago; a biography, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux; and a collection of essays, Seeking Rapture. She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their children.

Reviews

“[Harrison’s] telling brings moral clarity to the dark fate of a family: the daylight gaze of narrative itself as a form of empathy.”—New York Times Book Review

“A tale at once gothic and Greek, Freudian and Shakespearean, taboo and tragic.”—Washington Post Book World

“Magnificent . . . a darkly poignant study of survival.”—USA Today

“Masterful . . . a fascinating and comprehensive examination of the before and after of a brutal triple murder, of the cyclical nature of violence and of the tragic ineffectiveness of our social support systems.”—Los Angeles Times

“Lucid, psychologically probing and disturbing…[While they Slept is] a morally nuanced story, and a culmination of Harrison’s favored themes: sex, family and power.”—Time Out New York

“You can count on Harrison for white-water prose and ferocious candor…Harrison’s intense and resonant inquiry affirms the cathartic power of the story, and reflects on the miraculous cycle of loss and death.”—Booklist

Ideally, the family environment is a loving, nurturing one where children are cherished and cared for. This is not always the case. Some children are raised in an emotionally and/or physically abusive environment, and the harm bestowed can haunt them throughout their lives. In rare cases, a child may take revenge against the abusive parents. Such was the case with Billy Gilley Jr. In While They Slept, novelist/memoirist Harrison (The Kiss) describes the details that led to Billy killing his parents as they slept and then his youngest sister, Becky, who walked in on the act. Gilley believed that he would be liberating his other sister, Jody, from their abusive parents. Harrison's accounts of these 1984 slayings come from interviews with Billy (who is still imprisoned) and surviving sister Jody and from a variety of documents (e.g., transcripts of 911 calls). Just as unusual as Harrison's pursuing this subject 24 years after the murders is her intertwining an account of own abusive childhood throughout the narrative. Whatever the title may say, it is evident that Harrison is using the Gilley tragedy as a means of dealing with her own abusive relationship with her father. Though the narrative can therefore sound self-indulgent, she does a good job of reviewing the Gilley case, offering a fundamental look at the searing private dramas that can lead to family tragedy. Recommended for criminal justice collections.--Tim Delaney, SUNY at Oswego Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

In the early morning of April 27, 1984, outside Medford, Ore., 18-year-old Billy Gilley bludgeoned his parents, Bill and Linda, and his 11-year-old sister, Becky, to death. He believed his act would allow him and his 16-year-old sister, Jody, to free themselves from an abusive home. Comprising extensive interviews with both Jody, a Georgetown graduate and victims' rights advocate, and Billy, serving three consecutive life sentences in Oregon, Harrison recounts the trial, where Jody was the prosecution's star witness, and attempts to understand the Gilleys' troubled family history. Despite differing accounts from the now estranged siblings on the severity of their parents' abuse, it's clear that both parents routinely engaged in verbal and physical cruelty. Billy claimed his murder of Becky was unintentional, but it sealed his fate. Novelist and memoirist Harrison (The Kiss) attends admirably to detail, and her dissection of the effects of violence on both perpetrators and victims is thorough. But by bookending the account with musings on her incestuous relationship with her own father--already addressed in both her fiction and nonfiction--Harrison dilutes the power of the Gilleys' story. (June 17) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

"[Harrison's] telling brings moral clarity to the dark fate of a family: the daylight gaze of narrative itself as a form of empathy."-New York Times Book Review

"A tale at once gothic and Greek, Freudian and Shakespearean, taboo and tragic."-Washington Post Book World

"Magnificent . . . a darkly poignant study of survival."-USA Today

"Masterful . . . a fascinating and comprehensive examination of the before and after of a brutal triple murder, of the cyclical nature of violence and of the tragic ineffectiveness of our social support systems."-Los Angeles Times

"Lucid, psychologically probing and disturbing...[While they Slept is] a morally nuanced story, and a culmination of Harrison's favored themes: sex, family and power."-Time Out New York

"You can count on Harrison for white-water prose and ferocious candor...Harrison's intense and resonant inquiry affirms the cathartic power of the story, and reflects on the miraculous cycle of loss and death."-Booklist